


Knock-Knock Joke

by ProtoNeoRomantic



Series: Patch Works [34]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Joyce is the backup mom, Multiple Relationships, Teen Pregnancy, Xander makes jokes, back from the dead, life sucks, swell on paper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 09:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3524507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoNeoRomantic/pseuds/ProtoNeoRomantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Xander goes to Joyce with his concerns about Angel's reappearance and cryptic warnings to Buffy, he decided to seek her advice about a serious problem in his own life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knock-Knock Joke

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Whose Line is it Anyway?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3120551) by [ProtoNeoRomantic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoNeoRomantic/pseuds/ProtoNeoRomantic). 



Joyce had only been back from lunch a few minutes. In fact, Brian had only just left the Gallery when Xander strode purposefully through the front door. As though he had been waiting for her. He had been. “Angel’s alive,” he said without preamble. “We have to tell Buffy.”

“But he can’t be,” Joyce tried to reassure both Buffy’s friend and herself. “Buffy saw him killed.” But thinking back on the accounts she had heard of that night, Joyce had to admit there had been a lot of assuming involved. 

“Look,” Xander said, “I saw him with my own eyes, last night. More importantly, I felt him with my own hands, beating heart and all! Angel’s not just not-dead; he’s _alive_.” Joyce didn't know what to think of that. She'd have called Buffy if she had known how to call, but she'd be in the middle of that damned reception by now, and she didn't have a cell phone that worked overseas. There was nothing they could do but wait, and no sense spending the whole day discussing and worrying. She told Xander that. Then they spent an hour or more discussing and worrying anyway. Speculating. Borrowing trouble and investing it in anxiety as her mother would have said. When Joyce finally repeated that nothing could be done and Xander was free to go home, he still didn't.

Xander hung around most of the afternoon. He was concerned that Angel would show up there, obviously, but that didn’t really explain it. If Angel really was a living human being again, if the bizarre ritual the vampires had performed had really resurrected the man and not the monster, Joyce doubted if she were in any danger. And probably neither was anyone else, as long as he understood (as what he had said to Xander seemed to indicate he did) that there was no place for him in Buffy’s life. Even as much trouble as Xander seemed to have differentiating between the man and the demon, he basically understood that. Something else was bothering him. Something personal. He had lost his job over the encounter with Angel and he might yet have more trouble with the courts because of it, but there seemed to be more to it than that. He alternated between half-hearted joking and uncharacteristically committed brooding. Joyce did her best to sympathize without knowing exactly what was wrong. 

Finally after four hours, Xander came to the point. “I’m in so much trouble,” he said, “and I can’t tell my parents because they would just freak out and yell and throw things, and I don’t need that right now. I just… need to talk to someone.”

Joyce would have liked to have told him that whatever it was his parents would understand. But she had _met_ his parent. “Well, I can’t promise I’ll be any help,” she said instead. “But you can talk to me. Sometimes just talking helps. When you say exactly what’s wrong out loud, when you take a step back and really look at it, sometimes it doesn’t seem that bad.” 

Xander laughed nervously. “What works the other times?” he asked.

“You could dance around it all afternoon by telling knock-knock jokes and hope it gets better on it’s own,” Joyce said dryly, feeling just a little impatient with him. 

“Okay, good, let’s try that!” Xander declared, sounding near hysterical. “Knock, knock. Who’s there? My life’s over. My life’s over who? If I knew that… well, no actually, it’d still be over.”

“It can’t be that—” Joyce began.

“I slept with Willow,” Xander said miserably, “and now Cordelia’s pregnant.”

“Oh,” Joyce said. “Oh my.”

“I didn’t mean…” Xander mumbled. “I mean obviously Cordelia was already… I mean I just didn’t…”

“I understood,” Joyce assured him. “I’m just not sure what I can say.” Because sometime, when you say exactly what’s wrong out loud and step back and really look at it, it is that bad.

“The thing is,” Xander said, “I love Willow, I really do. And we could be happy together, forever maybe. In fact, I can’t imagine my life without her. And with Cordelia, I know I’m always going to be watching my back and walking on eggshells and apologizing for stuff I didn’t even know I was doing. The problem is, I mean even aside from the whole responsibility and doing the right thing deal, I’m in love with Cordelia. The thing is, I think I might be in love with Willow too. And they’re in love with me.” Xander buried his face in his hands. “So like I said, my life is over. And I’m still stuck living whatever this is.”

 


End file.
